


Honeycomb Heart

by twistedthicket1



Series: Hearts [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Feels, Fluff, M/M, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 12:14:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4960213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedthicket1/pseuds/twistedthicket1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small oneshot post "Heart of Stone". For those who wanted a fluffier or more solid ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honeycomb Heart

 

 

 _ **221 B**_ greets them with dusted shelves, empty walls and two bedrooms that sit with hushed breaths as if only awaiting for their return. It is more than either of them truthfully expect, Sherlock having been living on the streets and John with Mary for so long. Hand in hand in the shadow of the stairs, the army doctor looks up at Sherlock. His eyes are dark blue, patient and kind, and the detective takes a moment to once again think about the fact that John is with him, present. He blinks back the wave of emotion that sweeps over him with that feeling, nearly swaying on the spot with the weight of it.

 

Sherlock’s arms are thinner than John remembers, and littered with track marks. Like constellations they stain the detective’s skin, and the army doctor wants nothing more than to press his lips to each one, kiss them away. It’s been two months since he’s seen his lover, Sherlock having gone into rehab quickly after their reconciliation. John feels like he’s looking at a pale ghost of the man that he used to know, but it is better than the crushing weight of fear he had felt when Sherlock had vanished into his homeless network. At least in this moment John knows that Sherlock is alive, and once again he finds his fingers entwined with those longer digits, thumbs sweeping over the man’s knuckles in a soothing motion. John’s voice is rough, emotion implied but left unsaid as he murmurs quietly.

“I think this time we’ll only need the one bedroom.”

Sherlock’s only response is to squeeze John’s hand, blue eyes flicking towards him as a thrum of expectations and new beginnings tingle down both of their spines.

 

****

 

John’s experienced pain before. He’s had his heart ripped out, beaten and battered again and again, and still he finds himself alive and present. It in in this moment he thanks whatever deity there might be that he had made it this far, his hands cupping the back of Sherlock’s neck, guiding him towards the bed. Boxes act as islands they wind around, left to neglect in prospect of physical intimacy. Sherlock’s eyes never stray far from John’s face, and it is as if he is afraid that if he looks away his army doctor will disappear, a ghost or illusion born of a pipe dream.

 

John is struck with the need to prove his physical presence, and his lips find the plush lower half of that cupid’s bow, the plane of a sharp cheekbone, the column of Sherlock’s neck. He lingers there, sucking a mark in a sudden fit of possession, all teeth and lips and tongue. Sherlock’s knees buckle slightly, threatening failure even as the back of John’s knees hit the edge of the bed. This doesn’t deter the army doctor much, and he pulls Sherlock forward without much though, the taller man falling on top of him in a sudden fit of clumsiness that is both sweet and somewhat hilarious.

 

The detective’s pallor is too pale to hide the flush crawling along his cheeks and ears at John’s attentions, and a low appreciative rumble finds its way from his chest, resonating down deep in John’s bones. It is the hum of a hive, the kickstart of a motor engine, and John hums desperately in return. He is suddenly filled with a need to touch Sherlock, to have him and ground him and make this whole move real somehow. His blunt fingers, tracing their way down the long ridge of Sherlock’s spine play a melody.

 

Sherlock’s words are whispered in the shadow of their shared breath, small and husky with vulnerability and affection.

_“It was for me?”_

John feels the emotions, a mix of sadness and anger and deep, bottomless love stem through his hands, into his fingertips. They touch scars, left behind by hands meant to torture, to kill. The texture of them feels deep and wrong and like a physical manifestation of Sherlock’s sacrifices. Even as his hips shift, finding more contact in such a way that leaves the detective gasping, John is answering with a sighed breath against the shell of Sherlock’s ear.

“Always. The song was always, _always_ for you.”

 

****

 

It is weeks later, lying in bed (this time with a bedsheet and comforter as well as a far more organised flat) that Sherlock traces the patchwork of John’s scar and makes confessions in the dark.

“I used to talk to you, while I was away. I’d… I’d do it even though you weren’t there. It helped, when I was... finding the isolation difficult.”

Curled up as he is upon his chest, John cannot see Sherlock’s expression. His hands sift through the man’s curls, twisting the raven coils about his fingers with an absent kind of affection. There would have been a time that John would have found it difficult to picture Sherlock struggling with any kind of sentimentality, let alone something as fragile as loneliness. Now though, his arm merely tightens about the man’s shoulder. His voice is quiet in answer, musing as he looks up at the ceiling and relishes the warm weight of another on top of him.

“I tried everything to forget you. I drank, in the beginning, didn’t eat much. Didn’t feel like there was a whole lot of point, really. I thought to myself that the world had finally given me my one chance of redemption, a second start- and I’d lost it before it had even truly begun. Stupid, really, but you saved me. Saved me again by coming back, truthfully.”

Sherlock shifted then, twisting to peer into John’s face. The detective’s gaze was rather uncertain, but his words were earnest even as in the shadows he stroked along John’s jaw, his hair.

“I underestimated your attachment. _**Severely.**_ I thought… Well I thought the way I felt would never be reciprocated.” A pained, nervous swallow, and the apology that John for once in his life didn’t want finally came. “I’m so sorry, for the pain that I have caused you.”

 

John felt an aching in his chest, he couldn’t breathe. Like he had been running a marathon, his chest heaved with unspoken grief. The last bit of tension between the two of them seemed to melt, blossoming finally in the way that both of them curled towards each other.

“I’m sorry too.” He whispered softly, so softly. Sherlock felt rather than saw the stain of tears in the hollow of his collarbone. “For being so stupid. For not giving you a chance to explain. We’re both idiots it seems like. Only makes sense.”

The two of them laughed, rusted chuckles that sounded far too old.

 

When they took each other again, it was with a gentle kind of consideration. The goal wasn’t the end, rather to savour the time that they had lost. Bare skin against bare skin, both of them realised that this was perhaps the last chance the universe might ever give them. Neither John nor Sherlock had truthfully any plans to let it slip through their fingers once more.

 

****

 

Sherlock woke to the strings of a piano being played, the sound echoing syrupy sweet and gentle. For a moment he lay there, just listening to the melody being carefully set out. John was composing, his tenacious, soldierly tendencies making it sound more like a march then a melody. Note by note, chord by chord Sherlock listened as the sound of it slowly pieced together.

 

It was a new song, a new sound. As the detective finally rose and found his worn dressing gown, he passed by the abandoned piano bench. A small smile touched his lips at the name of the piece resting there, sitting innocuously next to its partner where it had been abandoned in favour of a cup of tea.

 _ **Sherlock’s Song**_ , and **_Healing._**

  
It seemed appropriate, even if the detective complained about John’s overuse of G chords on his way to his microscope and experiments.  


End file.
